An Opportunity To Trust

Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Romans 12:1, MSG

I DOVE HEADFIRST into the local church youth group soon after I became a follower of Jesus at sixteen. I stepped onto the church stage and performed in little dramas, I read lots of Christian authors, and I dated a Christian boyfriend.

Somewhere along the way, I picked up the notion that the best Christians were those who chose to leave their ordinary lives and become missionaries in remote countries, sharing the Good News of Jesus with those who had never heard it.

That very thought grew as I got older and matured in my faith. Because I felt a call to be a communicator of the Good News, my soul often got tangled with how to live. Wasn’t working in ministry the best possible route? Wasn’t my ordinary life just getting in the way? I often saw adulthood responsibilities like house chores, finances, and even parenting as somehow less important. They were everyday, unexciting things. They weren’t spiritual, were they?

Turns out, I couldn’t have been further from the truth. My daily life was not in the way; it was the way. God was showing me how He uses all kinds of everyday things—my marriage, children, housework, job, friendships—to speak to me, grow me, reveal Himself to me, and help me see the world as He does.

God develops faith, hope, and love through our motions and routines. And even through our daily temptations, He gives us opportunities to trust Him. We don’t have to uproot ourselves and everything we know to live for Him. Instead the Bible shows us how God has worked in the lives of countless people through their ordinary days—whether they were walking toward Him or away from Him.

Didn’t God interrupt Paul’s ordinary journey to Damascus with His extraordinary light? A simple walk along a road turned into a life-changing moment and a spiritual awakening.

Didn’t Jacob engage in a wrestling match with God in the middle of the night? His spiritual epiphany happened on an ordinary night during the hours he normally slept.

Didn’t the Fall happen when Eve was chilling in a garden, eating a piece of fruit? A simple snack turned into our extraordinary spiritual death.

God takes our everyday life and makes it the path to knowing Him. Cars can become sanctuaries. Showers are sacred places. Balancing a checkbook can be our greatest place of faith. Meals and beds—these are both ripe places to know God.

Sister, the nitty gritty details of life in front of you are not in the way. They are the way. God wants to meet with you in the same places and spaces in which He met the disciples: on the road, inside your home, along the hillsides, in your workplace, at dinner parties, in gardens.

Your daily life is how Jesus makes a way to meet with you. Look for Him and His grace around every corner—in the kitchen, in your backyard. He’s there.

GRACE REFLECTION: In what ordinary activities can you meet God? Picture Jesus there with you. Ask Him to make His presence known.